Gina McCarthy: Seasoned regulator primed for the climate fight

For four years, Republican critics treated Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson as a human punching bag — a job-killing regulation machine who used a fake email address while serving at the forefront of President Barack Obama’s drive to throttle greenhouse gases.

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Obama makes personnel announcements

As Obama made it official Monday that he’s handing the agency’s reins to one of Jackson’s top lieutenants, some conservatives made it clear that nominee Gina McCarthy represents more of the same.

McCarthy brings bipartisan credentials to the job — including her past work as an environmental regulator under then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. But for the past four years, she has headed EPA’s air regulation efforts, a bulwark of the Obama administration’s efforts to restrain climate-changing gases, toxic mercury from power plants and pollution from vehicles’ tailpipes. And that makes her nomination the likely start of a larger proxy fight over the president’s second-term climate agenda.

Obama also announced he was nominating MIT physics professor Ernest Moniz for energy secretary. But it was McCarthy who was getting the lion’s share of the attention from the administration’s critics.

“Gina McCarthy’s nomination to head the EPA sends a clear message that the president’s plan is to encumber the economy with rising energy costs, rather than encouraging growth in the energy sector to help bring costs down,” said a statement Monday from one conservative group, the Independent Women’s Forum.

Another conservative group, the American Energy Alliance, likened both Jackson and McCarthy to the Castro brothers in a statement last month, predicting that “The EPA will look as different under Gina McCarthy as Cuba looked when Uncle Fidel passed the hammer and sickle to his little brother Raul.”

“It is a shame the president continues to put his extreme partisan agenda ahead of jobs and energy security in West Virginia and across the country,” said Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a champion of the coal industry, in a statement Monday. She said she is “disappointed but not surprised” by McCarthy’s selection.

At the same time, there were no immediate signs of an industry-backed groundswell to derail McCarthy’s confirmation. Leading advocates for the petroleum, mining and coal-fired power industries issued restrained statements either congratulating her or praising her for working with them on past regulations.

On the other hand, veteran industry lobbyist Scott Segal said even business groups that don’t like EPA’s agenda often find themselves liking McCarthy’s style, including her willingness to change pending regulations based on their input.

“Of course, we often disagree with the final rules that have been advanced under McCarthy’s watch,” said Segal, who works at the firm Bracewell & Giuliani. But he added, “What many in industry appreciate about her style is her directness and openness to engagement with the regulated community.”

“Almost every large EPA rule has errors — both in policy and methodology,” he said. “McCarthy listens and allows for the possibility of midcourse corrections.”

In announcing her nomination Monday, Obama highlighted McCarthy’s “reputation as a straight shooter” who takes in differing opinions.